Producers’ attitudes towards television coverage of an election campaign (UK election 1966)

Voters depend heavily on the mass media, and increasingly on television, for their perceptions of the significant political issues and personalities of the day. Even though initial predispositions help to filter what electors notice, the sheer visibility of issues and events, as determined by media prominence, must also fill out their maps of the political scene. Since (as Campbell et al. (1960) have pointed out) ‘the decisions of those who control communication are partial determinants of public awareness . . . more information is needed about them’. The focus of this attempt to collect such information is a set of attitudes which apparently influenced the approach of certain BBC producers to their task of reporting the British General Election of 1966.